With all the buzz of SMF and depth claims, I am wondering if they have reached or surpassed some of the older P.i. units for in water detecting. If you have used both, lets hear your thoughts.

If anyone says one is better than the other, I would like to know how they determined which one was better, the same or worse than the other. Especially as it would be quite difficult to set up a test bed in a salt water environment and switch between detectors over a specific, single target. I have several different detectors and and have found outstanding items with each but I would not be comfortable in saying one detector is better than another. I would say that it is the operator's knowledge of the equipment that would make a difference. In Hawaii's black sand a PI wins hands down. Other than that I go with the detector that fits a specific beach's environment the best including trash, rocks or sand, seaweed, salt or fresh water and the weight of the detector. My two three most used detectors are the Manticore, Excalibur and ATX.

I've compared my Excalibur on raw depth on the wet sand In PP/all metal with the Sea Hunter, Sand Shark and the older Whites PI 1000/2000..and there as no compare for the excalibur is deeper. And that being said I have hunted behind the Nox 800 and 900 and the Manticore and found they are missing good (deep) targets. Im not sure on the D2 for I have yet to run into anyone using it. I also tested the Whites DF against the Excalibur and I found the excalibur deeper but after talking to a few DF hunters found the response of deep targets with the DF is a negative drop out of the threshold which may have been the reason.

On some of the newer PIs like the Whites PI TDI BH No way they can even come close. Then you have the Fisher AQ, Excalibur don't even come close to its depth, so I know the D2 and Manticore would be the same.

On the Sea Hunter, my old hunting partner had one and I used it a few times. After he seen how I was doing with the Excalibur he ditched the SH.. Same goes for the CTX, had a guy hunting up north of me in the Bay. He was killing the gold. I asked once he got the place cleaned out if he minded I come up and hunt with the excal, a few months later Mike contacted me and said they had hit it very hard and felt there was not much left. My first trip there I got several silvers and 1 or two golds. Almost the very next day Mike had a Excalibur and went to town on the place.. he really cleaned the place out then.. about 50 more gold and many silvers..

And a interesting side not, I went up to Jersey to meet a couple guys who were swinging the CZ21 and some garret . The best the excalibur could do on a 7 gram gold was 14 inches, that dag CZ 21 was hitting it at 16 to 18. And keep in mind the excalibur has a wider field at that depth and the CZ has a narrow cone shape field. But if you can get that cone over that 18 inch deep gold.. its a digger for sure. So the old saying the CZ20s and 21s... some can be Hotter then others is true.

Bottom line.. It would not surprise me that the newer tech machines are deeper than the Sea Hunter ..Sand Shark.. but anything else I highly doubt.

Excal and the 800.. me finding deep targets and the Nox coming behind trying to hear them..